Live Review: The Chemist, Rinse, Settling

Camaraderie is very much in the air at the X&Y Bar this evening. Part of it's probably to do with the weekly “Friends” club night, which sees the diminutive venue decked out with video game consoles, DVDs of The OC and other quirky miscellanea designed to lend the space a friendly, welcoming air, but, more tangibly, it's simply emanating from Kurtis Tupangaia and Tim Swanston, the pair of musicians and obviously good mates who make up the night's first act, Settling. Being their debut performance, it's easy to forgive the rough edges around what Settling do – with both Tupangaia and Swanston manning electric guitars, their back-up percussion and instrumentation comes in the form of a trusty laptop. They have an intermittent tendency to race ahead of the measured, accurate programming sounds on which they rely to keep time. Straight from the grungy, driven strains of Do You Lift?, through a down-tempo cover of Single Ladies, a rap (seriously), and the two-step-groove-into-wall-o'-distortion ender Get Inside, it's clear that Settling are having the time of their lives.

So when Rinse come on out and drop their comparatively unmemorable brand of cookie-cutter indie rock, it's a little deflating. Rinse are just one of those acts who are bound to polarise – sure, the negative pole might be smaller than the heaving, cheering mass of positivity in front of the stage, but it's nonetheless important, because nobody else will tell you that it seems like you love Depeche Mode a little too much, or that it's super-evident that you've had TV On The Radio's Wolf Like Me on your brain lately, or that the basic underlying message of the set seems to be, “Hey, we have a song on Unearthed (Point) and Dom Alessio really liked it, so if all you're going to take away from our set is that you'd rather watch snails watch paint dry, then so be it”.

Mercifully, four-piece alt-rock luminaries The Chemist, in town supporting their fresh full-length Ballet In The Badlands, waste no time in reigniting the spark. Frontman Ben Witt is in fine form, his blues-tinged vocals sitting comfortably above a somewhat muddy mix while his bandmates do their best with what aural clarity they've got. Still, it's a good warm-up for Splendour and the group show they're well ready for it, with a late highlight manifesting in the form of the seemingly ubiquitous (presently, anyway) Silver & Gold, and relative newcomer Chris Wright showing throughout that he is truly across filling the rhythmic hole left by last year's departure of previous drummer Elliot Smith. It's all very enjoyable and inoffensive, and The Chemist are obviously very skilled at what they do, but, after the night's initial bang was followed by such a self-satisfied whimper, it can't help but feel like an uphill slog to the finish line.